Once Upon a Time
by Alesford
Summary: Every fiber of her being, her heart tells her that this is different, and it has to be-—because what sane person says 'Yes' to a marriage proposal from a person she just met in an alleyway behind a theater? Follow-up to "Spontaneity". -Faberry. One-shot.


**A/N: After a wonderful response to "Spontaneity" and some requests for a sequel, I've written this short follow-up that is filled with a sickening amount of fluff and romanticism. I hope all of you had enjoyable Valentine's Day celebrations. As always, please enjoy and review if you do.**

**Disclaimer: "Glee" is not mine.**

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><p><strong><strong>**Once Upon a Time**

As she sits in a bright red booth in a retro-styled twenty-four hour diner, Rachel stares at the simple ring on her left hand. It's utterly crazy, she knows. She always dreamt of a princess cut pink diamond in channel setting with a white gold band and smaller diamonds encircling it, but when she looks at the heavy gauge round sterling silver wire lined with its rose gold sleeve and moissanite stone—it seems _right_. As right as the hazel eyes watching her with a curiosity and adoration that she hasn't felt since her high school sweetheart attempted to propose during senior year. Every fiber of her being, her heart tells her that this is different, and it has to be—because what sane person says 'Yes' to a marriage proposal from a person she just met in an alleyway behind a theater? Granted, they were at the ice rink and not in the alley but the concept of it all remains.

Rachel wonders why neither of them feels the inclination to talk their throats raw learning about one another in this late hour following their new engagement to one another. Her breath catches when she looks up from the ring to meet Quinn's gaze and she understands why; they have the rest of their lives to discover and rediscover one another and she finds that she is perfectly content with that, without urgency. Really, this diner could be some earthly form of heaven because she has never felt more content than this moment, in the presence of the blonde woman with bright eyes and a book of poetry in her front coat pocket.

Quinn reaches forward, her slender hands—_a piano player's hands?_ Rachel wonders—wrapping around Rachel's left and her eyes are filled with concern and love. "Are you okay?" she asks. Quinn's voice is barely audible, and for a reason that Rachel thinks is wholly unrelated to her years of musical training, her ears pick up the question perfectly, already tuned into the tremulous alto of the blonde's lilt.

The singer works her bottom lip between her teeth in a way not dissimilar to her proposal acceptance earlier in the night. She nods and a soft laugh escapes from deep in her chest and the way Quinn's eyes light up, she wants to laugh again next to the other woman's ear to see that reaction from her time and time again. "I shouldn't find what humor I do in our current situation, but the ridiculousness of it all and how _okay_ I actually am is truly amusing to the point of hilarity. In all seriousness, with what I am feeling at this very moment, I almost wish to question if I _wasn't_ okay before now. It's like your presence turned on a light and I am seeing love and life for the very first time. It's… illuminating for lack of a better word."

Quinn smiles this sheepish smile that Rachel wants to lean forward and kiss and so she does and Quinn laughs her own throaty laugh. Rachel can't help but grin against her lips. Hands entwined and mouths pressed feverishly against each other makes her feel so wonderfully complete that she ponders how whole she could have been before she met Quinn Fabray.

Rachel Berry has never thought herself such a romantic until this night, but with one look at the woman sitting across from her in the booth, who is beaming at her with a brightness that she can hardly fathom, all she can think of is starlit nights and moonlit serenades and candlelit dinners and sonnets and red roses. She struggles to imagine the possibilities of getting to court the beautiful woman before her. It makes her heart swell with joy and anticipation, and she chances another glance at the engagement ring on her finger and the wider smile playing across her own lips is completely involuntary.

"How can I be so enraptured and in love with somebody I only just met six hours ago?" It's only now that the time has dawned on her and that she realizes the two of them have been traipsing about the city in glee and newfound love for the last seven or eight hours. The last vestiges of night are being forced away by a sun trying to rise above the horizon and ignite the city with a different kind of daytime life.

She stifles her yawn, and Quinn laughs quietly again before shaking her head.

"I don't know. My parents have a great marriage, but I don't know if theirs is a fairytale love and this—" Quinn lifts their enjoined hands off the table. "—this feels like it should have begun with 'Once upon a time'."

"Once upon a time, a beautiful princess with golden locks and golden eyes swept into the kingdom's theater to fall in love with the silly jester at first sight…" Rachel muses. "Falling down on bended knee, the princess procures a ring that so perfectly fits the jester's small hands like the glass slipper of Cinderella's own tale…"

Quinn's lips tighten and Rachel can see she's holding back a laugh. "Are you sure you're not the writer here?" she questions with a chortle tucked away in her words.

"One day, strangers will read a story about our mad dash of love and shake their heads at our antics but secretly swoon in admiration and jealousy," Rachel assures her, and Quinn merely nods in agreement.

"One day, strangers will read that story in a book dedicated to a breathtaking actress that stole the author's heart with love at first song."

Rachel does swoon a little at that statement and the way Quinn whispers it only for her ears. The moment turns silly when she fails to hide another yawn, and the blonde chuckles good-naturedly at her expense. "Can I see you home?" Quinn asks, reaching into her pocket for enough cash to cover their late-night basket of French fries and cups of coffee. Tiredly, Rachel nods and together they slide from the squeaky synthetic material lining the booth. With so natural a movement, Quinn wraps an arm around Rachel's waist and they lean comfortably against one another as they make their way onto the slowly-waking streets of New York City.

They're both too tired to navigate the subway, so they hail a cab just outside the diner and take it to Upper East Side where Rachel shares a small one-bedroom apartment with Brittany Pierce. They're about to devolve into a fit of giggles as Quinn tries to help Rachel get the door unlocked in their rapidly-increasing exhaustion. When the door to the apartment finally opens, they stumble inside to see a very naked Brittany and a very naked Santana entangled and asleep on the full-sized bed pushed into the corner of the living room. They quiet their laughs with gloved hands, tripping into the bedroom just to the left where they collapse onto Rachel's bed, falling asleep in each other's arms as the sounds of traffic begin to stir on the streets below the window.

Whispers of 'I love you' are murmured throughout the night as consciousness grasps them momentarily from sleep before releasing them back into slumber. The words aren't forgotten the next morning when they wake or fifty years down the line when they're still waking in each other's arms, just as in love as the day they met.


End file.
